A 2D shooter running at 62 FPS on a $10 Arduino Nano ESP32 sounds like a demo-reel fib, yet that is the number reported for Jet Studio, a new open-source game editor for microcontrollers. Hackaday covered the project in its write-up.
What Jet Studio actually is
Builder Fedyfausto made an editor that looks and feels like Godot, because it is a Godot app extended with a C++ GDExtension. You lay out scenes on a desktop, then export a game that runs on bare hardware: an Arduino Nano ESP32 or an STM32F746. The target screen is the cheap ILI9341 SPI LCD, the 240×320 panel that ships on most hobby display modules.
Technical details worth knowing
Reported numbers: the 2D shooter hits 62 FPS on the Nano ESP32 and 83 FPS on the STM32. Demos also include a pseudo-3D Outrun-style racer and a 3D physics simulation, so the engine is not limited to sprites. The usual gotcha with this panel is the SPI bus. An ILI9341 pushing full frames is bandwidth-bound, so SPI clock speed (40 MHz is common on ESP32 boards) matters more than raw CPU speed. The write-up also notes that an LLM helped produce much of the code, so read the source before you trust it in a classroom project.
Build it yourself
Grab an ILI9341 module and wire it to the hardware SPI pins: MOSI, SCK, CS, DC, and RST, plus 3.3 V and ground. Check that the module’s backlight pin is tied to 3.3 V, since a dark screen is the most common first-run surprise. Test the panel with a plain TFT library example before flashing anything from Jet Studio, so you know whether a problem is wiring or engine. For a school hackathon or an ECE elective, a handheld game with two push buttons on GPIO inputs is a one-weekend scope. Parts like the Nano ESP32 and TFT modules are available at circuit.rocks, and the project details live on the Hackaday page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which boards does Jet Studio support?
The Arduino Nano ESP32 and the STM32F746, both driving an ILI9341 SPI LCD. The 2D shooter demo reportedly runs at 62 FPS on the ESP32 and 83 FPS on the STM32.
What do I need to try a microcontroller game like this?
A supported board, an ILI9341 240×320 SPI display, a few jumper wires, and push buttons for input. Test the display with a basic TFT library sketch first.
What will I learn if I build this?
You will learn SPI wiring and clock speeds, frame-rate budgeting on limited RAM, button debouncing on GPIO pins, and how a game engine maps scenes to hardware, useful for ECE electives and hackathons.
